Twelve weeks ago we enjoyed our last meal out.  Little did we know that ten weeks of complete curfew lay ahead and it wouldn’t be until today that we’d next eat out.  What better place to go for a convivial occasion with the the sun setting over the sea than the venue of the previous occasion, King of the Mambo.

We had a lovely time, meeting up with local friends as well as enjoying tasty fayre, but an adjoining dark and lifeless Galle Face hotel (it will reopen in August when the airport reopens), the need to “sign in” with full contact details, watching other diners arriving in face masks equally as ugly as ours, and sitting apart in a thinned-out restaurant vs the usual bustle, took the edge off.  Add a government decision that because yesterday was a religious day, today there would be no alcohol on sale on the island (no, we don’t understand either), the atmosphere was a bit flat.  The band sang and played their hearts out with great Cuban music, but they couldn’t quite make up the gap.

No menus either, the decision being to reduce the risk of virus spread by printing a 3-D bar code on a small sign in the middle of each table, the scanning of which with a mobile phone camera automatically opened the menu on their Facebook page instead.  Mum – Yes, I can hear you saying “but I don’t have a mobile phone, I don’t do Facebook, and mobile phones shouldn’t be allowed at the table!”

Steve